Affirmative Actions

The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a series of proposed constitutional amendments that would have prohibited affirmative action in public education, employment and purchasing in the nation's fourth most populous state. Calling them misleading and overly broad, the state's highest court rejected four proposed constitutional amendments offered by the Florida Civil Rights Initiative to ban preferential treatment based on race, color, ethnicity or national origin.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor's dissent from the high court's 6-2 decision Tuesday to uphold Michigan's voter-approved ban on affirmative action for public universities has been variously described as “ blistering ," “ scathing ,” and " outraged . " It is passionate, for sure, but it is actually logical and scholarly, and well worth curling up with. She laments that the court's role as a bulwark against suppression of the minority has crumbled, and that her colleagues have allowed Michigan voters “to do what our Constitution forbids.” (Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, in his majority opinion, noted that race considerations in college admissions are permissible.

The California Supreme Court decided Wednesday to examine whether Gov. Pete Wilson and the UC Board of Regents can be tried on charges that they illegally rounded up votes before banning affirmative action at the state's elite university system. Six of the court's seven justices voted to review a ruling by a Court of Appeal in San Francisco that allowed a lawsuit against Wilson and the University of California regents to proceed.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court upheld Michigan's ban on the use of racial affirmative action in its state universities Tuesday, ruling that voters are entitled to decide the issue. The 6-2 decision clears away constitutional challenges to the state bans on affirmative action, which began in California in 1996. Justice Anthony Kennedy, speaking for the majority, said the democratic process can decide such issues. “This case is not about how the debate about racial preferences should be resolved,” he said.

"Supreme Court rules against affirmative action. " That is likely to be a common shorthand description of Tuesday's decision upholding the constitutionality of Michigan's ban on the use of racial preferences in admission to state universities. But it's misleading. The 6-2 decision leaves undisturbed previous rulings in which the justices said that state universities may take race into account in admissions policies without violating the U.S. Constitution. But the court now has made it clear that although such preferences are permissible, voters may opt to prohibit them.

The Supreme Court upheld Michigan's ban on affirmative action on Tuesday. The 6-2 decision, as The Times' David Savage explains, “clears away constitutional challenges to the state bans on affirmative action, which began in California in 1996.” From Savage's article : “Justice Anthony Kennedy, speaking for the majority, said the democratic process can decide such issues. 'This case is not about how the debate about racial preferences should be resolved,' he said. 'It is about who may resolve it. There is no authority in the Constitution of the United States or in this court's precedents for the judiciary to set aside Michigan laws that commit this policy determination to the voters.'” This is what The Times editorial board argued in October when it opined on the case: “This case isn't about whether state universities may provide preferential treatment in their admissions policies.

The recent defeat of an effort to reinstitute affirmative action in admissions to California's public colleges and universities demonstrates the political power of Asian American voters and challenges the conventional wisdom about their partisan loyalties. The defeat is a reminder that Asian Americans can have a decisive impact on political and policymaking processes. Perhaps more important, it suggests that if education is a key issue that drives Asian American voters, the Democratic Party may not be able to reliably count on their support in the future.

April 3, 2014 | By Jean Merl, This post has been updated. See the note below for details.

The controversy over a stalled effort to overturn a state ban on affirmative action spilled into a hot race for Congress this week when six Democratic state legislators rescinded their endorsements of state Sen. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance). In a March 25 letter mailed to Lieu's congressional campaign office, the legislators asked their colleague to "remove our names from your list of endorsements for Congress. " As of Wednesday evening, the names no longer were listed under the endorsement page on Lieu's campaign website . The letter was signed by Lieu state Senate colleagues Ricardo Lara of Bell Gardens, Norma Torres of Pomona and Holly Mitchell of Los Angeles and by Assembly members Lorena Gonzalez of San Diego, Anthony Rendon of Lakewood and Jose Medina of Riverside.

SACRAMENTO - When the state Senate took up the issue of affirmative action in late January, it was a relatively tepid affair. After 20 minutes of polite debate, senators passed a measure that, if approved by voters, would overturn California's ban on affirmative action in public higher education. But within weeks, the debate turned fractious. Backlash arose among some Asian Americans who feared their children could lose access to the state's universities if more places were granted to students from other minority groups.

An effort to overturn California's ban on affirmative action in public universities stalled in the Legislature on Monday. The proposed constitutional amendment by Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina) would have removed references to higher education from Proposition 209, an initiative passed by voters in 1996 that bans consideration by government institutions of race, ethnicity and sex in hiring, school admissions and contracting. The amendment, SCA 5, passed the Senate in January on a party-line vote.

SACRAMENTO - The Democrats' loss of a legislative supermajority stifled their push to change California's campaign finance and affirmative action laws Monday, potentially foreshadowing a return to partisan battles over their other priorities, such as property taxes, water policy and a rainy-day fund. Monday's losses come less than two years after Democrats won a historic two-thirds control over both the state Senate and Assembly, eliminating the need for a single Republican vote on any bill.

SACRAMENTO -- State Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina) portrayed Monday the shelving of his amendment to overturn the state's ban on affirmative action in higher education as an attempt to defuse the increasingly heated backlash the proposal has generated in recent weeks. "Given the scare tactics and misinformation used by certain groups opposed to SCA 5, we felt it was necessary to have a discussion based on facts and take the time to hear from experts on the challenges our public universities and colleges face with regards to diversity, as well as the implications for California's workforce and our overall competitiveness in a global economy," Hernandez told reporters at the Capitol.